Saudi Arabia is brutally cracking down on one of its own cities!

I don't think that would be smart. A very large amount of Saudi citizens are hardcore Wahhabis. Deliberately arming them w/weaponry that could take
down the Saudi govt would make things immeasurably worse. After the Grand Mosque in Mecca was besieged by a hardcore movement led by a fake Mahdi in
1979, the Saudi govt has tried to appease that demographic in order to maintain their power. They started doing a lot of their strict piety-based
crackdowns because of this. So arming that part of the population would only make things even more volatile because they'd have even more ways to
extort political concessions from their govt.

Remember, the hardcore Wahhabi Osama Bin Laden was exiled from Saudi Arabia because he wanted his troops to provide security for Saudi Arabia against
Saddam instead of the royal's choice of calling in the UN. Whether we accept it or not, many Western countries prop up the Saudis and have such strong
defense deals with them specifically so they can keep those radicals in check and to keep those radicals on our side in proxy wars
(and to serve as a counterbalance to Iran). Of course there are other interests like trade, foreign investment, and energy supplies.

With that being said, I don't like their anti-Shiite crusade one bit. But overthrowing them or helping arm people who will overthrow them would have
massive repercussions globally. Overthrowing Saddam created a clusterfudge, but that would be mere child's play compared to overthrowing the Saudi
govt. There are better ways to handle this.

I don't think that would be smart. A very large amount of Saudi citizens are hardcore Wahhabis. Deliberately arming them w/weaponry that could take
down the Saudi govt would make things immeasurably worse. After the Grand Mosque in Mecca was besieged by a hardcore movement led by a fake Mahdi in
1979, the Saudi govt has tried to appease that demographic in order to maintain their power. They started doing a lot of their strict piety-based
crackdowns because of this. So arming that part of the population would only make things even more volatile because they'd have even more ways to
extort political concessions from their govt.

Remember, the hardcore Wahhabi Osama Bin Laden was exiled from Saudi Arabia because he wanted his troops to provide security for Saudi Arabia against
Saddam instead of the royal's choice of calling in the UN. Whether we accept it or not, many Western countries prop up the Saudis and have such strong
defense deals with them specifically so they can keep those radicals in check and to keep those radicals on our side in proxy wars
(and to serve as a counterbalance to Iran). Of course there are other interests like trade, foreign investment, and energy supplies.

With that being said, I don't like their anti-Shiite crusade one bit. But overthrowing them or helping arm people who will overthrow them would have
massive repercussions globally. Overthrowing Saddam created a clusterfudge, but that would be mere child's play compared to overthrowing the Saudi
govt. There are better ways to handle this.

originally posted by: Bluntone22
Would you guys feel better if they had bought weapons from Russia or China instead?

originally posted by: Bluntone22
Would you guys feel better if they had bought weapons from Russia or China instead?

Yes because :
1) our hands would be clean.

2) Russian and Chinese weapons are mostly # so when Saudi Arabia hands those weapons onto terrorists it wont state of the art stuff.

3) if Saudi Arabia openly turn on the west its better they have crap from China and Russia than state of the art technology from the UK/USA.

4) we should not be making deals with terrorists or there supporters.

5) how can the USA condem iran for its human rights yet deal with Saudi Arabia,

I would like to point out that ISIS had state of the art equipment that the Iraqi army abandoned early on, and the Kurds fought them to a stand still
with 30-40 year old soviet era weapons and weapons platforms. At least till Trump finally started arming the Kurds directly.

eta: On topic, nobody should be surprised by this I expect when its all said and done that we will either see new countries drawn up based on the
majority ethnic groups, or genocide of some groups in the ME.

But, but! The Canadian government sold them armored vehicles with a guarantee they wouldn't be used against SA civilians!
Only the f*****g politicians didn't see it coming it seems, of course.

I remember the dirt bag Canadian Prime Minister at the time (Stephen Harper) saying that stopping the deal "would only hurt hard working
Canadians"...

Their new puppet Trudeau had the chance to stop it too.

Canada is obliged to uphold its reputation for honouring business deals and therefore must sell $15-billion of armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia,
Justin Trudeau said on Wednesday when asked about video footage that shows the Saudis using similar machines against civilians in the Mideast
country.

“We need to be able to project [to] the world that when Canada agrees to something, it sticks to its word,” the Liberal Prime Minister told MPs in
the Commons.

You raise an interesting point which I've never even thought of. Surely not all are wahabi but as you say arming them would most likely just cause
more carnage. Until I read your post I would have supported an armed revolt frome the Saudi citizens.

Sadly I have a feeling someone is going throw something in the mix to spice things up...I won't speculate any further to avoid thread drift.

Damned if they do damned if they don't. Their options aren't the greatest. Doesn't look like anyone is going to save them short of divine
intervention.

But, but! The Canadian government sold them armored vehicles with a guarantee they wouldn't be used against SA civilians!
Only the f*****g politicians didn't see it coming it seems, of course.

on the entry level, the Canadian Government stipulation and the Monarchy stance...seem to have been broken

but here's the deal, just like the USA Patriot Act has a clause where any person can be labeled a 'domestic terrorist'... the 'civilians' in
the town of Al-Awamiya have themselves been collectively termed enemy combatants/terrorists and therefore civilians are not being mistreated or
persecuted for their protests

To be fair, not all Wahhabis are violent or extreme. From my experience, it seems that there are 2 separate branches, each with vastly different
practices. And the Saudi citizens come from a lot of different religious backgrounds, even though the official stats say otherwise. There are also
many Saudis who support women's rights and a bunch of other progressives causes.

The ones I'm talking about are similar to the hardcore Israeli settlers or the hardcore American militia movement (I mean like the Bundy's). Remember
when the Bundy's had those 2 protracted standoffs w/the federal govt in Oregon & Nevada
(HERE & HERE)? The
standoff in Oregon was because they took over an isolated & barely known federal office.

But the group in Saudi Arabia did an armed takeover of literally the holiest site in all of Islam! The Grand Mosque in Mecca is where the Kaaba is.
That's the place that the Qur'an commands us to face when doing our daily prayers and it's also the most important part of our religious pilgrimages,
Hajj and Umrah. There's simply no comparison in Modern Christianity. It took joint special forces operations from Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and other
Muslim groups to defeat those extremists & to get them out.

Now imagine if China or Russia wanted to put pressure on the US govt, so they chose to arm the American militia groups like the Bundy's or the more
aggressive branches within the Black Lives Matter movement, etc. If people think our govt already appeases them now, just imagine if they got their
hands on the latest Russian military technology. And that still wouldn't be a valid comparison.

As for someone throwing things in the mix, the topic in the OP also touches on the current Qatar crisis. One of the core accusations Saudi Arabia &
its allies have against Qatar is that they've been secretly working with Iran to support the Shiite groups in Eastern Saudi Arabia. I admittedly don't
care enough about this specific situation to do more research on it, but it looks like they already think someone (Iran) is stirring things up
there.

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